I Am Not a Witch
(UK/France, 92 min.)
Written and directed by Rungano Nyoni
Starring: Margaret Mulubwa, Henry Phir, Nancy Murilo
The inciting event of I
am not a Witch could easily be a scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. A woman fetches a bucket of water
and drops it when she encounters a young girl on the path home. Her explanation
for being startled? The little kid’s a witch.
In the absence of any hard evidence confirming the ludicrous
testimony of the trivial affair, the court calls upon a bona fide witch doctor
who administers a test. Upon a killing a chicken, if the bird dies in a circle
drawn on the floor, then the girl’s a witch. The flying circus roars and the
poor girl soon finds herself in a coven in the desert, which is really just a
forced labour camp for marginalized women. The girl, dubbed “Shula” by her
fellow “witches,” moves around the fields attached to a ribbon is advised that
any attempt to escape will render her into a goat. She’s a slave of an occult variety.
Shula’s fate becomes increasingly peculiar as a government
official, Mr. Banda (Henry Phir), exploits her as his personal slave. This poor
girl—remember, she’s only eight years old—must play judge and jury to various
sham trials akin the one that determined her fate. Endowed by the masses with
utterly bogus sage wisdom, Mr. Banda lets Shula render verdicts on petty thefts
and other misdemeanors simply by seeking her gut feeling. She’s basically
playing “eenie meenie miney mo” with the fates of villagers who believe in the
power of witches. I am Not a Witch
sees the affair spill out into layers of oppression as women and the poor
become slaves to rhetoric and have their own folklore and beliefs used against
them for the gain of a powerful few.
Newcomer writer/director Rungano Nyoni offers an enigmatic
portrait of a peculiar scenario. She examines the charge of witchcraft from a
personal, rather than political level, keeping the story of the reluctant witch
on the level of myth as the tale sees the poor girl exploited as a tool against
the masses. I am Not a Witch doesn’t
need to get explicitly political, either, when it presents such a compelling
and empathetic innocent as the target of an unsavoury curse. Mulubwa is a
wide-eyed miracle of a young performer.
Nyoni proves herself a natural behind the camera, too. I am Not a Witch, which is the UK’s
adventurous bid in this year’s Best Foreign Language Film Oscar race, is one of
the most original films of the year. The director’s intuition creates a
beguiling, mysterious atmosphere that conveys a wealth of information about the
dynamics of class, race, and capital through unpretentiously devised scenarios
and characters. Her sense of style is a marvel with the white ribbons that
imprison the witches blowing in the wind like currents of power and control,
brutal weapons in their innocence and familiarity. Nyoni’s trust in Mulubwa to
carry the film is a gamble that rewards. She barely says a word throughout the
film and moves about the hellish scenario dumbstruck, letting the fear, anger,
confusion, and defiance cast a spell over a viewer to draw them into Witch’s brew. I am Not a Witch is a simple fable of great power.
I am Not a Witch screens at
the European Union Film Festival in Toronto on Nov. 21.
Please visit EUFFTO.com
for more info on this year’s festival.
